Friend drama expands into something more sinister in this engaging, if somewhat formulaic, thriller.
Betrayed by her best friend, a young woman at a prestigious British boarding school finds herself at the center of a murder mystery.
As they enter their final year at Morton Academy, an elite secondary school founded to provide economically disadvantaged students with a path into the most rarefied circles of higher education, Chloe Roberts is stunned when her friend Nikhita Patel sabotages her bid to become Head Girl. Nikhita also steals Chloe’s boyfriend, Theo, and though Chloe, who’s Deputy Head Girl, is still a member of the secret Jewel and Bone Society, she finds herself adrift. Readers will easily feel sympathy for her plight. Chloe’s new roommates for the 1999-2000 school year, Amari Haddad and Claire Walker, take her under their wings, introducing her to a decadeslong school tradition, The Book of Crime and Punishment: Students write down the name of someone they feel has wronged them, the person’s transgression, and an imagined punishment. Chloe adds Nikhita to the ledger. But when bad things begin happening to people at Morton, Chloe fears there may be more to the book—and possibly to Nikhita—than she at first imagined. Leaning heavily into boarding school mystery tropes, this whodunit will keep readers guessing, though experienced genre readers may find the ultimate reveal not altogether unexpected. Chloe and Claire are white, Nikhita’s name cues Indian heritage, and Amari has Algerian ancestry.
Friend drama expands into something more sinister in this engaging, if somewhat formulaic, thriller. (Thriller. 13-18)Pub Date: Sept. 2, 2025
ISBN: 9780593805787
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: June 13, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2025
A descriptive and atmospheric paranormal social thriller that could be a bit tighter.
After a Nigerian British girl goes off to an exclusive boarding school that seems to prey on less-privileged students, she discovers there might be some truth behind an urban legend.
Ife Adebola joins the Urban Achievers scholarship program at pricey, high-pressure Nithercott School, arriving shortly after a student called Leon mysteriously disappeared. Gossip says he’s a victim of the glowing-eyed Changing Man who targets the lonely, leaving them changed. Ife doesn’t believe in the myth, but amid the stresses of Nithercott’s competitive, privileged, majority-white environment, where she is constantly reminded of her state school background, she does miss her friends and family. When Malika, a fellow Black scholarship student, disappears and then returns, acting strangely devoid of personality, Ife worries the Changing Man is real—and that she’s next. Ife joins forces with classmate Bijal and Benny, Leon’s younger brother, to uncover the truth about who the Changing Man is and what he wants. Culminating in a detailed, gory, and extended climactic battle, this verbose thriller tempts readers with a nefarious mystery involving racial and class-based violence but never quite lives up to its potential and peters out thematically by its explosive finale. However, this debut offers highly visually evocative and eerie descriptions of characters and events and will appeal to fans of creature horror, social commentary, and dark academia.
A descriptive and atmospheric paranormal social thriller that could be a bit tighter. (Thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9781250868138
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
Cracking page-turner with a multiethnic band of misfits with differing sexual orientations who satisfyingly, believably jell...
Adolescent criminals seek the haul of a lifetime in a fantasyland at the beginning of its industrial age.
The dangerous city of Ketterdam is governed by the Merchant Council, but in reality, large sectors of the city are given over to gangs who run the gambling dens and brothels. The underworld's rising star is 17-year-old Kaz Brekker, known as Dirtyhands for his brutal amorality. Kaz walks with chronic pain from an old injury, but that doesn't stop him from utterly destroying any rivals. When a councilman offers him an unimaginable reward to rescue a kidnapped foreign chemist—30 million kruge!—Kaz knows just the team he needs to assemble. There's Inej, an itinerant acrobat captured by slavers and sold to a brothel, now a spy for Kaz; the Grisha Nina, with the magical ability to calm and heal; Matthias the zealot, hunter of Grishas and caught in a hopeless spiral of love and vengeance with Nina; Wylan, the privileged boy with an engineer's skills; and Jesper, a sharpshooter who keeps flirting with Wylan. Bardugo broadens the universe she created in the Grisha Trilogy, sending her protagonists around countries that resemble post-Renaissance northern Europe, where technology develops in concert with the magic that's both coveted and despised. It’s a highly successful venture, leaving enough open questions to cause readers to eagerly await Volume 2.
Cracking page-turner with a multiethnic band of misfits with differing sexual orientations who satisfyingly, believably jell into a family . (Fantasy. 14 & up)Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-62779-212-7
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2015
BOOK TO SCREEN
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